


Cudgel

by Annevar44



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Guilt, M/M, UST, Valjean (Jackman), dubcon, top!Javert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-03
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-25 14:03:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/953970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annevar44/pseuds/Annevar44
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the kinkmeme prompt, round 5 page 32:  Javert carves and sands his own cudgel.  Valjean can't help staring.  But Javert has plans for the mayor that go far beyond a woodworking demonstration.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Madeleine entered the station-house in the languid calm of a summer afternoon.

"M. le maire," Javert said. He rose and bowed - more of a curt nod than a bow, Madeleine thought uneasily. Javert was turning a roughly fashioned stick in his hands, and the odor of fresh-cut wood filled his office. The scent pricked the inner part of Madeleine's nostrils. 

A scent from one's youth is like magic from a bottle: it can affect the judgment of even a prudent man.

On Javert's desk a carpenter's plane and a rasp lay alongside a wicked-looking knife. Beside the tools was a pile of wood shavings. "I was not expecting you at this time, Monsieur," said the inspector. There was nothing improper in the words, and if Madeleine saw the barest hint of mockery curling the corners of his lips, well, it was possible that he was merely imagining that. "Is anything amiss?"

"Certainly not," said Madeleine. "The town is admirably secure, thanks to your efforts and those of your valiant men. I was merely passing by and wished to--" _to let you know I am not afraid of you_ "--to convey my appreciation for your tireless work." 

Javert ran his hands along the length of the stick, then held it up to his eye and sighted down it. It had a solid, hefty look and was about the length and breadth of Javert's own forearm. He picked up the knife and set it along the stick's edge. As he slid it forward, a slender curl of wood fell away and joined the pile of shavings on his desk. The scent of wood became stronger. 

Unhurriedly, Javert raised his eyes to his superior. "The police thank you for the sentiment," he said, "but your appreciation is unnecessary. We are merely doing our duty. We watch. We see that justice is done. Sometimes it takes longer than expected -- but we always get our man, in the end." Keeping his eyes on the mayor and working by feel alone, he set the knifeblade to the near end of the stick again. _Fssp,_ it went. Another curl dropped softly to the desk.

Madeleine watched Javert's hands at their work. They were strikingly large, those hands, and he had long noted how ideally suited they were to Javert's work. The palms were almost frightening in their breadth, and the fingers were long enough to appear simian. One could imagine those hands forming a vise around the throat of some luckless fugitive. Madeleine, more than once, had experienced that chokehold in his nightmares. 

Yet the hands were not entirely those of a beast, for the nails were short and neat and well-cared-for, in keeping with the precise lines and creases of Javert's uniform. Madeleine could not help noticing, also, the agile sensitivity of the fingers as they moved over the wood. Javert had the sure touch of a musician bent on coaxing the best from his instrument. Confidence was the overriding impression those hands manifested: whatever Javert was shaping, he seemed to have no doubt that when he finished it would please him well.

"Tell me," Madeleine said, unable to resist the question. "What is it you are doing there?"

Javert gave his most wolfish smile. "My cudgel cracked yesterday. It had served me for many years, and the cutpurse I was apprehending had an exceptionally hard skull. I am making myself a new one." He held out the stick, letting its midpoint rest in his open palm. "It is well balanced; that is essential. I prefer to make my own, so I can size it precisely to my grip. The standard-issue ones are not quite right for a man of my... proportions." 

Saying this, he held up his free hand. Slowly he splayed out the five fingers to their full glory. "As you can see," he said. His smile became terrible.

With such hands, thought Madeleine, an officer of the law could twist a fugitive's arms behind him, could force his man through the iron doors of the city jail, and into the assizes courtroom at Arras, and then onto the convict-wagons bound for Toulon. Madeleine knew -- knew without doubt -- that those hands would someday fall hard upon him, and their merciless grip would mark the end of his life as a free man.

 _Fssp._ The glittering blade executed another journey along the length of the stick.

"You seem so interested in my bit of carpentry," remarked Javert. "I can only guess it is because you have some personal knowledge of cudgels and their use. Perhaps you have been overly close to one before?"

Madeleine stiffened, but only for an instant. Then he said, in a tone which approximated careless boredom, "Why, of course not."

"Excuse my error," said Javert. The smile still hovered unmistakably at his lips, but it was now as subtle as it was mirthless. "Perhaps you would like to run your hands along it. This is only the rough beginning, of course. It is quite heavy, as you can see. A criminal fleeing the law is generally struck down with a blow to the shoulders, then to the back of the neck as he stumbles forward. If he is particularly strong and resistant to authority, it is sometimes necessary to take harsher measures, like this." Here Javert demonstrated a motion which began low, at the height of Madeleine's knees, and rose upward in a quick, violent motion to the height of his waist. The mayor flinched and pressed his knees together involuntarily. He kept his face steady, however, and took the stick from Javert's hand. Raising it to his nose, he inhaled deeply.

"Do you find oak especially well-suited to your purposes?" he asked. 

"Monsieur knows something of wood," said Javert, bowing slightly. "But of course, the countryside of Faverolles is known for its stands of oak. And I believe you labored among trees at one point. Or -- am I mistaken?"

Madeleine made himself look directly back into Javert's eyes. "I am from Faverolles, certainly, as my accent shows. You're a very bright boy, Javert; a quick study. It is quite a privilege to have you in my service." He scratched his belly lazily -- not something he would typically do, but he wished to remind Javert of the perks of authority. He yawned widely. "Your little stick is very nice. Oak is not a dense wood, of course. I suppose that makes it ideal in your case -- you would not want to be overtaxed by something heavier."

So saying, he raised the stick high above his head and whipped it down and up, then side to side, in a fearsome display of his own strength. The end of the stick came rather close to Javert's face -- so close in fact that a breeze stirred the iron-gray locks of Javert's hair. The inspector did not pull back from the threat, but remained still, wearing a patient and indulgent expression. He looked neither frightened nor particularly impressed.


	2. Chapter 2

“Strength is a characteristic much admired,” Javert said, putting out his hand to reclaim the stick. “Why, just yesterday, I overheard M. Lebecque holding forth in the café on Dix-Pierres, praising a fine ox he owns at his country estate. Apparently the beast is uniquely able to pull a plow all day without food or rest. Never mind that the creature must be lashed to a tree when not in use, due to its brutish and violent nature.” 

Madeleine felt his hands ball into fists before he could stop them. His instincts – nineteen years in the making - at times ran quicker than his conscience. With some effort he managed to summon an image of the Bishop. He was able to answer with a humble demeanor. “God gives us different gifts. As I said, I am indebted to you for your service to the town. You are an exceptional officer.” 

He would have turned to go then -- but at that moment Javert took up the stick in one hand, the rasp in the other, and began to smooth the wood with long strokes. The exertion made his cuffs ride up, exposing the iron sinews of his forearms. Javert was spare of body: well-muscled but without any extra flesh that might have served to soften his frame. He did not flaunt his strength but it was visible to all who chose to look. 

The rasp hissed back and forth over the stick. The heady smell in the small room, the rasp’s rough purr, the pendulum precision of Javert’s sweeping arm: all these combined to draw Madeleine deeply into a sort of hypnotic fascination. He remained where he stood like a man lulled into stupor.

_Wsssht. Wsssht. Wsssht._

Under Javert’s sure touch, the cudgel's irregular edges were pared away. With each stroke a puff of wood-dust rose and then settled onto the desk; Madeleine drew deep draughts of air in through his fine flared nostrils. Almost, he could hear the brook and the tumbling bees, the wind stirring the trees of the orchard where his father had worked when he was young. 

“Some prefer it entirely smooth,” Javert remarked, not pausing in his efforts. “But not I. I like it rough.” He set down the rasp then, and stroked the wood with his bare hand, up and down its length, in a caressing gesture. “The friction, I have found, can be useful when circumstances leave my weapon wet.”

Madeleine said nothing, but he watched the large hand of his chief inspector glide over its object. There was a kind of worship in Javert's touch. Madeleine watched as the other man took a small bottle from his desk and, squeezing out a few golden drops of oil, ran his hand to spread them over the wood from base to tip. 

“I was a guard, briefly, at the Bagne of Toulon.” Javert smiled and blinked slowly, in a way that made Madeleine think of the small lizards that sunned themselves on stones in the Bagne while the convicts labored. “As you perhaps remember.”

“Yes -- I think you have mentioned that before.” 

Valjean was glad his voice did not quaver. He spoke as any magistrate would, addressing any inferior official to whom some small courtesy was due. That is what they were, the two of them: a mayor and his man; nothing more. He reminded himself of this. 

“I remember a prisoner there,” Javert said, “a low-minded man, sentenced for recidivism. He had been caught once again violating prison rules. I pulled him out of line before the evening meal, to take him to the flogging post for just punishment. I expected resistance – for he had always been a stupid brute, one of that class that creeps about in the underworld of every large city. But this time when I laid hands on him, he did something unexpected. At my mere touch, he sank down to his knees." Javert raised his eyes to meet his superior's squarely; one might even say insolently - though of course insolence is one of those qualities easily seen where it is too much anticipated. "He hunched low, this man, bending forward so I could see the back of his thick neck. As I looked on, he pressed his lips against my muddy boots."

Madeleine swallowed.

"At first, of course, I thought he meant to wheedle a lighter sentence with this show of cravenness. But this was not so. He asked for nothing. And in his face, before he bent, I had seen something most transfiguring. _Contrition;_ that is the only word for it. All at once, in a flash of divine understanding, the creature had become aware of his own corruption. And confronting at last the horror of his diseased soul, he was instantly driven to make penance - by humbling himself before a representative of the law and society he had betrayed.”

Javert smiled as he continued to rub at the stick. It had a dark buttery sheen to it now, and his fingers glowed as they kept up their rhythmic movements. “I have seen this at other times in my work. Most criminals, if they are not completely mentally degraded, retain a measure of God-given shame. In time they crack under the strain of their own perpetual dishonesty. They reach a point when the weighty burden of the perpetual lie, the unending bleat of ‘I am innocent! I have done no wrong!’ cannot be borne another moment. Their immortal souls, do you see, will not allow it.” 

The inspector’s stare, his hard dark eyes, penetrated Madeleine’s own. Madeleine was aware of his breath coming faster. Only that morning had he stood in his bedroom donning his trousers and shirt, buttoning his waistcoat, carefully tying his cravat before venturing forth. Now he was aware of the plain fact of his body, naked and sweating slightly beneath his clothes. This thought, and Javert's knowing look, filled him with shame. A peculiar heat was stirring in his groin. 

“The degradation of any man,” he said levelly, “is cause for crying in heaven. It is good that even the worst of sinners has the potential to lift himself up, with God’s help.” 

Javert made a shallow cup of his left hand and poured a generous pool of oil into it. Then he patted the stick lightly against his palm, making a wet slapping sound. "Those who deny their crimes can never lift themselves up. God demands confession. When Adam and Eve first hid from Him instead of admitting their disobedience: that is when they were lost.” Now he clenched the stick hard with his slick grip and stroked it roughly and thoroughly from one end to the other, with such force that his shoulders swelled and rolled beneath his uniform. He added, “It is most important to fill all the cracks with oil, even the smallest. The wood will stay supple through years of heavy use.” 

A drop of oil dripped from the stick’s tip and beaded on the blue of Javert’s cuff. The inspector frowned. “I will have to have this laundered immediately.” Withdrawing a white handkerchief from his pocket and draping it across his left hand, he drew the stick softly across the cloth. The action was performed with a curious gentility which stood in contrast to his earlier savage movements. The whisper of wood on fabric sounded almost like a human voice - a murmur, Madeleine thought, such as a man of troubled conscience might hear in the night while drifting unmoored between sleep and wakefulness. 

“That recidivist I mentioned.” Javert gave Madeleine a bland and guileless look. “He did not merely kiss my boots. He remained bent for some time, pressing his mouth against them, and when he finally raised his head I saw that he had licked them free of dust so that they shone. Next, as I looked down on him, he raised his head toward me and his lips parted. At this point I again thought he meant to plead his case for leniency, but still he said nothing. He remained crouched and kneeling in a posture of utmost humility, straining his neck upward. Only when his mouth at last achieved its aim did I realize what he was after - for with great devotion he kissed the cudgel that swung at my waist. In that moment, his eyes closed and a look of peace and quietude came over him. It was as if he had laid himself down at the door of Heaven.” 

These implacable words pressed down on Madeleine like a divine hand. The scent of oil and oak mingled, dulling his reason as they intoxicated him with a longing for things he had lost so long ago: innocent slumber, candid greetings between friends, the sound of his true name spoken aloud. The room was close and the air thick. He could see in his mind the scene Javert described: the kneeling prisoner, straining upward, desperate for forgiveness. The stone-faced guard looking down with penetrating eyes. 

Javert worked the stick back and forth across his cloth-draped palm, so the wood's gleaming length plunged in and out through the handkerchief's soft folds. Though the scent was sharp and pure, the taste of the oiled oak, Madeleine was certain, would be bitter. And the feel against a man's mouth he could also well imagine. Wood would triumph. Flesh would yield. 

“And then,” he asked hoarsely. The question had risen within him and now it pushed itself out into the scented air. “The prisoner. What happened next?” 

“I punished him, of course. As was my duty. He did not resist.”

Madeleine suffered a weakness in his knees, not a buckling, merely a ripple. He caught himself quickly. 

“Afterward," Javert continued, "he was calm. Two guards carried him to his plank when his punishment was over. He lay quietly in his bed weeping softly. I allowed him the afternoon to rest, and by morning he was a new man. He asked for the priest, and for the first time made a full confession of his past crimes. His mental agonies, his defiant rages, these left him entirely. A peaceful air of resignation and acceptance accompanied him thereafter. He was made a trusty not long afterward.”

Holding the shining weapon upright, Javert lowered his mouth to it and blew softly over the tip. Madeleine tried to look away, but his eyes betrayed him. Javert’s lips made a loose pucker with a dark wet shine between them, as if a ruby were held there. The inspector’s tongue came out briefly to flick the corner of his mouth.

“It may interest you to know,” he said softly, “that I am currently awaiting an important letter from the Prefecture in Paris. It concerns a fugitive whom they have long sought. He has been identified, at last.”

“Is that-- ” Madeleine began. But his voice caught. His throat seemed to spasm as if an unwelcome object had been thrust down it. "Is that--" he tried again. This time his voice was no more than a squeak. 

“Speak up,” Javert said. “You are mumbling, M. le maire.”

Madeleine drew in a breath. He thought again of the Bishop and held himself in an erect, composed manner, the way a strong man might hold himself under threat of torture. This time he managed to bring forth the full sentence. “Is that so?” 

“Yes. I expect the letter will contain my orders to take this fugitive, this recidivist deserving the sentence of death, into my custody immediately. Of course,” Javert continued, “things would go better for the man if he steps forward before then and shows remorse. The law looks more favorably upon a penitent. Most important, confession would relieve his soul of its burden. Do you not think so?”

Smiling, he held out his long arm, blue-clad, tapering down to its cuffed wrist, its hard hand, clean nails, the dark length of wood projecting out from it - this last seeming an utterly natural extension of the arm that held it. The cudgel stretched across the distance toward Madeleine. Its polished length was darkly aglow as it reflected the mellow light that soaked through Javert's window.

"Do you not think so, M. le maire?" Javert repeated. He pushed the tip of the stick gently against Madeleine’s mouth.


	3. Chapter 3

Instantly Javert withdrew the cudgel. In one fluid motion, he returned it to the desk with a precise click, alongside the heap of wood shavings. "My apologies, Monsieur le maire. You are a busy man, with no time for talking to a mere police inspector. I should not detain you."

The bitter taste of wood oil burned on Madeleine's tongue. His face had blazed up in heat; he knew he must look flushed, and he was certain Javert was taking this as a triumph. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he thought of all the words he should say: _You are dismissed from your position this instant!_ or _You forget yourself, Javert!_ or simply, _Are you mad?_ But they all sounded weak. Javert was watching him keenly, looking not at him but into him - seeing through his careful manners and the layers of his decent clothes to the cringing fraud concealed within. He did not feel like the mayor of Montreuil anymore. 

"There is a visitor come to town," Javert said suddenly. "Have you heard? He presented himself at the mairie this morning. An interesting man, it's said. I caught of glimpse of him earlier today when I went out for a breath of air on the rue Medoc. He drags his right foot a little - as you do, Monsieur. A band of children followed after him, as they often do with you." He ran his hand along his cudgel and looked thoughtful. "I plan to pay him a visit later, for some conversation. I understand he used to be in the shipbuilding trade. It's possible he and I have some acquaintances in common."

"Good day, inspector," Madeleine said. Blindly, he turned toward the door.

Javert called out after him. "At the cobbler shop of old Georges - that's where you'll find the visitor. Perhaps you'll discover you and he have things in common, too."

Madeleine staggered out onto the street. The glare and shimmer of the afternoon dazzled his senses. Javert's office had been like a glade, dark and cool and perfumed with the scent of wood, but outside, the town square wore a hard glaze of noise and brightness and bustle. He tried to recapture his usual sense of calm gravity. He reminded himself that he was indeed the mayor, that his name was Madeleine, and that nothing had changed in Montreuil-sur-Mer.

Except that he would soon be back in chains.

His mind reeling, he made his way toward rue Medoc. He had understood the sinister threat Javert had made. He blinked dazedly at the blur of townspeople who greeted him - the men touching their caps, the women curtseying. Outside the cobbler shop, a boisterous crowd had gathered. A roar of laughter went up. A boy's voice carried, clear and bell-like, above the general noise. "Got 'im! Got 'im good that time!" As he approached, people moved aside respectfully to let him through, and some of the raucous chatter died down. In the close quarters of the crowd, he smelled sweat and dirt and the heat of many bodies.

He could see the shop entrance now. An old man, his back bent like a shepherd's staff, was standing against the wall beside the door. He was gaunt and wore the clothes of a beggar, all except for his hat which was the most extraordinary one Madeleine had ever seen. It was very tall and constructed haphazardly of different bits of colored cloth and leather scraps. A ragged grey beard obscured the lower half of the man's face. Splotches of food decorated his shirt. In another instant Madeleine saw why: for at the front of the crowd was a pile of rotten fruit, evidently collected from behind the market stalls, and as he watched a man stepped up, chose a squashed tomato, and let it fly. The old beggar did not try to evade the missile; in fact he held very still, though he bent his head down a little as if afraid of being struck full in the face. The tomato caught his strange headgear just above the brim and knocked it to the ground. The crowd cheered.

Madeleine turned to the small woman next to him. "Who is that man?" he asked. "What is going on?"

"A criminal is what he is, that's what! A dangerous man; a killer. You ought to stop such things, monsieur le maire. We cannot have murderers and brigands roving our streets among decent people!" But she edged forward as she said it, breathing excitedly, straining on tiptoe to see over the head of a half-grown boy in front of her.

The man who had thrown the tomato strode forward, grinning. At that moment, the cobbler stuck his head out the door, an awl in his hand and a ruddy square of leather tossed carelessly over his shoulder. "Another winner?" he shouted. "All right, you dog" - this was said to the unfortunate old man - "Pay my customer what he's owed."

The old man knelt down slowly amid the smashed fruits on the pavement. The tomato-hurler stood in front of him and propped one foot up on a wooden crate which seemed to have been placed there for the purpose, while the beggar took up a brush and a pot of bootblack from among the refuse, and began shining his shoes with clumsy, jerking motions. The cobbler watched for a moment, hands on hips. "Do him right," he called out, "just like I showed you, if you expect to eat tonight!"

A shadow fell over Madeleine, and he turned. Javert was beside him. He had come up noiselessly. As in his office, the hint of smile touched the corners of his lips. Under his arm was the cudgel, its shiny head protruding from the dark folds of his coat with silent menace.

"He is not as good as he could be, with that brush," Javert remarked. He spoke softly, his lips close to Madeleine's ear. "But of course, I don't suppose shoe-shining is much taught at the bagne of Toulon." Madeleine swallowed. "Do you know," Javert murmured, "I was quite certain I would find you here."

Madeleine stared again at the beggar, still hunched over the other man's shoes. In nineteen years, Madeleine had seen thousands of men pass through the bagne and had known most of them by sight. A distant memory returned to him: Tambroche, his old chain-mate, had had a similar face. But Tambroche had been hale and sinewy, with strength that rivaled Jean-le-Cric's and a sullen pride that remained indomitable even under the lash. He had fought everyone who crossed him, losing half an ear once to another prisoner's knife, but getting the better of the man and then biting off his nose in vengeance. He had been given his ticket-of-leave three years before Madeleine had received his own. Madeleine could remember the day of his departure, because all the prisoners paid notice when one of their own went out through the gates. Tambroche had strode out, gripping his ticket in his hand, wearing a worn set of civilian clothes, carrying the standard knapsack for which the prison charged half a franc. Just outside the gates, he had looked back defiantly and shouted a ribald insult at the watching guards. 

This pathetic creature had a face that recalled Tambroche, but it could not be the same man. How could a prisoner remain unbroken through twenty years of brutal treatment, and be shattered by his return to the civilized world? 

The old man finished his work and looked up wearily. Madeleine saw for the first time, his left ear above the matted beard. It was disfigured, ending abruptly in a puckered scar. 

"It is a sad sight, is it not?" Javert's warm breath touched Madeleine's cheek. "There kneels a man who has served his sentence and paid his debt. Seven years ago, he was paroled, and for seven years he has been a law-abiding man. He has carried his yellow ticket faithfully and shown it at every mairie. He has not hidden his past. He has not stolen, nor lied, nor made trouble. He earns his living by honest toil. Day by day he is trying to redeem himself." Javert's hand went to the knob of his cudgel, and he stroked it thoughtfully. "It is a hard road, but a just one - and so he bears it, like all parolees must. I can almost admire such a man. I wonder how he would feel to know that there are others who, through duplicity, cheated their way out of sharing the same hardship. An honest ex-convict shines boots for his supper, while not far away a deceiver has pilfered a life of luxury; he eats well at a warm table; he is drenched head to toe with adoration and respect; he distributes alms from bulging pockets and thinks himself a do-gooder in society. There is something unpardonable about that contrast. Wouldn't you agree, M. le maire?"

The words entered Madeleine as smoothly as a knife through cheese. He could not stand to look any longer at Tambroche - at the ruins of Tambroche - but he was unable to raise his eyes to Javert either. His gaze settled on the head of the cudgel. It gleamed. Madeleine could not look away. Again he thought of the large, well-kept hands of Javert and all they could do: stroke a carpenter's plane along a half-shaped weapon, wrap themselves around a throat, dangle a pair of manacles from one thick finger.

A woman in the crowd shouted shrilly. "Put on yer hat! Let's have another go!" The old man crept on hands and knees to the outlandish hat. With a gnarled hand he peeled off the ropy remains of tomato. Then he pulled the hat down over his brow and climbed slowly to his feet, taking his place against the wall as he had been before. A fit of coughing rattled his thin frame, just as a clump of rotting leaves flew through the air and struck the bricks beside him with a sickly thump.

Madeleine pulled his cloak tight around himself and retreated toward the mairie.


	4. Chapter 4

"But he is gone, M. le maire. On his way west, and a good riddance to him."

Old Georges stood tall beside his workbench, a square of leather spread across one palm, an awl poised in his other hand. The lamp at his elbow was unlit. Only the faltering light of evening reached tentatively into the gloom. It entered through the back of the cobbler's shop, where the door stood ajar, a dustbin propping it open.

In Madeleine's pocket, a hard lump was digging its lower edge into his hip. It was a bundle of ten-franc notes. At the mairie a few hours earlier, he had quietly slid the bolt on his office door so no one could disturb him, and then gotten down on his knees and slid his hand up one leg of his desk to where the thick roll of notes was secreted in a hole. Carving that hole and hiding that packet of money, in preparation for some future day when he might have to flee Montreuil without a backward look, had been his first act as mayor: a shameful start, it now occurred to him, for a man who was supposed to care for his townspeople.

"I am surprised to hear that," he told the cobbler. "I had understood that he was employed by you. Surely he cannot have left town at this hour, after a long day's work." He glanced toward the far corner of the workshop. The cobbler's former assistant used to sleep there. He had been a sallow boy and the cobbler used to beat him. He had run off to sea the previous summer. 

Georges followed his gaze and seemed to read his thoughts. He grunted, "I have a family to protect. My wife sleeps upstairs - and my daughter too, now her husband's dead and gone, and my young grandsons. I won't have a murdering scoundrel in my shop, creeping about in the night. He got his fair wage and went on his way. West, as I said. Was there something you wanted from him, Monsieur? If it's a shoeshine, I'll be honored to do the job myself. Only put your foot up on my stool, if you please. These old knees of mine don't bend as they did when I was young."

Through the half-open rear door, Madeleine saw the gathering clouds that promised rain. Tambroche was out there somewhere, past the edge of town. Tonight Madeleine would sleep under a snug roof. He had a spare room down the hall from his own bedroom, with a blanket of rough blue wool and a crucifix nailed to the wall. It was a clean and simple room. No guest had ever spent the night there. 

Earlier, at the mairie where he had hidden himself in his office all afternoon, he had sat with head in hands and thought about Tambroche, filthy and stained with tomato pulp, and then he had thought about the spare room and the clean basin of fresh water and the fine table his housekeeper would set. He had wrung his sweating hands, thinking of these two things. He had also thought of Digne. And then he had thought of Inspector Javert - Javert, whose large hands moved with savage grace down the rough shaft of the cudgel, in a room that smelled like an oak grove out of his childhood, but was in fact the inside of a police station-house. Javert, who had appeared beside him at the cobbler's shop; Javert the bloodhound who waited for the post from Paris. Javert had led him to Tambroche. He was surely watching from the shadows to see what Madeleine would do.

Madeleine had balanced all these thoughts. 

He and Tambroche were like one man who had divided in two. At Toulon they had lived the same misery; only after release did they walk different paths. Tambroche had kept his name and obeyed the law; Valjean had lied. One man had accepted the suffering that was visited upon him while the other had evaded it, leaving his chain-brother to his fate. 

Madeleine thought suddenly of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Suppose he, too, had divided at the moment of decision. The real Messiah, who was everything good and holy, would have gone forward with courage and humility to face what he knew was coming. But suppose that a part of him, the worst of him, the black putrid slough shed by a beautiful soul, had slunk away and hid his face. At Calvary, the Messiah would ascend the Cross and open his hands to the nails, while his ignoble double would skulk below, transfixed with horror, looking up at the torment of his better self.

The thoughts became an agony within his skull. He muttered to himself, "By God, I will bring him to my home. Let them all stare; let Javert do his worst. It is the least I can do, if I call myself a follower of God." 

Instantly he again felt the tip of Javert's cudgel forcing itself against his mouth. He remembered Javert's lean and predatory smile. The wood's bitter taste returned to him and the strength went out of him and he crumpled. "Well," he told himself, "I will give poor Tambroche a wad of money instead. That is more useful, anyway. With money, he can escape his sorry lot. I will do it right away."

On consideration, however, he had decided to wait until it was dark and Tambroche was alone. After all, there was no advantage in being watched by Javert. And what if Tambroche were to recognize him in the light? So he had been judicious and remained behind his large desk for the whole of the afternoon and into the evening, waiting for shadows to cover the town. He tried to rise more than once, but each time he decided it was still too early.

But in fact it had been too late. Because now Tambroche was gone.

The walls of the cobbler shop seemed to press in around him. "West," he echoed hollowly. "Very well. Thank you." And he stared once more through the open door, where the sky continued to darken and a distant tremor rumbled like the voice of God, muttering in displeasure. 

"Monsieur le maire? Are you all right?" The cobbler was looking at him curiously. "Do not be so alarmed, monsieur - it is only thunder. A common summer storm, closing in on us." 

Madeleine saw that the cobbler's sharp eyes were moving over him. He must pull himself together. "Of course," he said. "Only thunder." He blinked and looked around the shop.

"Something that you wanted?" said old Georges. Instantly his manner became brisk and solicitous. "Boots, perhaps. It will be a wet season. You should have a fresh pair. For a man of your stature, I insist on using nothing but the finest calfskin, and I will give you a special price in gratitude for--"

"Not boots," said Madeleine. "But yes. There is something." A strange desire had come over him, and he was suddenly very calm and sure of himself. "There is something you have, that I need." He pointed to a certain item on a shelf.

Tambroche was gone into the west, and a storm was coming, and tonight while Madeleine slept in comfort under the protection of a false name and a forged life, his old companion would be shivering in the open with nothing but a yellow ticket crumpled in his hand. Tambroche would spend the hours of darkness huddling under a tree and waiting helplessly, while water streamed through his thin hair and down his face.

Old Georges brought the item that he had pointed to, and Madeleine paid. And a short time later, with the sack under his arm, Madeleine stood on the doorstep of Inspector Javert. Recklessness had taken hold of him. He raised his hand and knocked loudly.


	5. Chapter 5

Javert answered the door looking very much as he always did - boots, uniform, regal bearing - but the top button of his shirt was open and he was not wearing his stock. 

"M. le maire. This is the second time today you have sought me out. Do you need assistance?" Javert cocked a single eyebrow. He leaned his sinewy frame against the wall beside the door. Madeleine's throat constricted. Feeling like a dumb beast, he could only gesture towards the open door. Javert raised his other eyebrow and said, "Of course, you may come in. But my home is a simple one. I am afraid you will find it lacking in the luxuries a famous mayor expects."

Javert stood back in a show of formal respect. Madeleine understood he was being mocked, but desperation was driving him; he could not do otherwise than step inside. He found himself in a small, spare room. The scent of oak was present here as it had been in the station-house. A small dining table stood against the wall and he walked to it slowly, as if his feet were weighted with lead. He could feel Javert's eyes upon him. He set his sack down on the table and one by one, took out the items he had purchased at the cobbler's shop.

"May I?" he muttered. His voice was a hoarse whisper. "Please." 

The inspector regarded him coolly. His gaze lingered on the objects on the table. He cocked his head to the side. Then he sat in the lone chair by the table, and stretched his long legs out before him. 

Madeleine closed his eyes briefly. Then he took the objects from the table and went down on his knees. The rough floor was hard to bear, but the dark shine of Javert's boots drew him on. He knew what he must do.

He unscrewed the lid of the small jar and stared down into the black substance within - as black as his own soul, the thought struck him - as its sharp scent rose. He took up the bootbrush. Its golden bristles were swallowed in darkness as he swirled them into the blacking. Then he pressed the brush against the inspector's left boot. He kept his head bent low over his task as he rubbed small circles into the boot. With every breath, he filled his lungs with air that smelled of mud and leather and blacking and the cramped moist feet of his police inspector. He felt himself transported out of his upright life, down into the humble but free life he would have had if he were an honest man. He felt his lowness, and the superiority of the man who sat above him. A calm washed through him like hot water through cloth, cleansing away the trembling anguish that had been swirling in him since being confronted with the spectre of Tambroche. This calm was far sweeter and more complete than the vaguely soothed feeling he generally derived every Sunday when he sat through Mass. He had a certainty that he was, for once, exactly where he should be. He was Jean-le-Cric again: the paroled felon whose crimes and sins were displayed for all to see, and who was debased before decent society, as he deserved to be. 

A deep secret opened its truth to him: a man who gives up his pride and reveals his sins is a man with nothing more to fear.

Craving filled him. He bowed his head lower so that his lips were poised just above the black shining leather. He hesitated, but he was in the grip of a strange desperation that could not be resisted. He bent further, and pressed a kiss against Javert's boot. He opened his mouth to it. The fresh blacking had a bitterness that burned his tongue, and this filled him with desire. His heart was pounding as he looked up slowly and fearfully to meet the inspector's eyes.

Javert's eyes were huge and dark, and his breath was coming fast as if he were in pain. His lips were parted, not in a smile but a grimace. He pushed his right boot forward. His hands were balled into fists. He gave a tiger's snarl. "You're not finished," he spat. "Black the other one."

Madeleine bent again. This time he did not use the brush. He pressed his face against the dusty boot and inhaled its odors, and with an open mouth he kissed the leather over Javert's instep. He worked his lips over it. These boots had strode through horseshit and down alleys full of refuse; and the thought of the filth he was imbibing increased his longing. He thought of Tambroche out shivering in the rain, and with the tip of his tongue he licked, experimentally, along the leather stitching that held the sole in place. And then he went still, for a hand had come down on the back of his head. Javert's hand: so large, the fingers spanned the peak of his skull from ear to ear, the thumb resting in the hollow at the nape of his neck.

That morning in the station-house, he had watched that hard hand stroking the rough wood of the oak cudgel. Now he pushed up against it gently, testing it. Javert's hand did not yield. It pushed down firmly, pinning him against the sleek black leather of the boot.

"Suck it," Javert growled, and there was a thickness in his voice that made Madeleine yearn to hear him say those words again. He opened his mouth wide. He wrapped his hands around Javert's ankle; then he took the damp leather between his lips and sucked as he was told. He could not breathe very well because of how hard Javert was holding him down now with that iron hand; his nose was pressed against the boot and his mouth was filled. His lips on the boot made a wet sound that reminded him of the nocturnal couplings of Toulon prisoners. He heard another sound: the hard gasps of Javert, who was drawing air between his teeth. The hand on his head pushed harder. Madeleine thought of the cudgel and its oak scent; he thought of Javert's powerful hand sliding along its length. He opened his mouth wider and rubbed his face against the slickness of the boot.

Then, all at once, everything was torn from him: the hand was gone; the legs of the chair squealed violently back across the floor, and Javert's boot jerked out of his hands and away from his mouth, scraping his cheek painfully and so suddenly that he cried out.

He looked up, dazed. Javert had leaped to his feet. He was shaking.

"Get out," he spat.

Madeleine stared at him for a moment, uncertain. Javert's face was hard with fury. "Get up and get out," he said. Then, in a more controlled voice that approximated his normal tone of surreptitious mockery, he added, "It's late, M. le maire - and my boots are clean enough."

Madeleine got to his feet. His face was burning. He turned and stumbled out the door. 


	6. Chapter 6

The road west from M-sur-M was pitted, and Madeleine's rented tilbury bumped over the cobbles. The breeze was stiff and the sky threatened. Although it had rained steadily through the night, the clouds looked heavy and dark again. Madeleine was beginning to regret the tilbury. 

M. Scaufflaire had pressed him to hire a more comfortable carriage. "Surely, Monsieur le maire would like to be covered, in this weather?" 

But he had declined. Already the tilbury was more luxury than he deserved. Any farmer would simply go on horseback for the journey he had in mind. Any poor man would go on foot, in broken shoes. 

He had covered five leagues, his eyes scanning the road ahead, but it stretched before him empty of life. Suddenly up ahead, he spotted a small knot of people. As he drew closer he made out that it was a family - the oldest member a woman of indeterminate age in a rough red kerchief, with three little ones clutching at her skirts. There was a half-grown boy as well. 

"Greetings," he said politely when he reached them. "Have you come far, Madame?" 

"St-Etienne. We're seeking work, Monsieur." The woman curtsied. It disturbed him that the poor always treated him as a man of status no matter how humbly he spoke. 

"I have come looking for someone along this road," he said. "A man." He hesitated. "An itinerant, bearded. Half his left ear is missing. He would be traveling on foot, like you, but he is alone." 

The woman and her son glanced toward each other. "I am sorry, Monsieur," the woman said. "We have seen no one. The rain has been harsh, this season, and none but the desperate travel in such weather." 

Madeleine dismounted the tilbury. Behind the woman's skirts, three little heads peaked out. From his pocket he drew a roll of notes. He pointed. "This road will bring you to M-sur-M. When you arrive, ask anyone to direct you toward the factory. At the gates, request to speak with M. Gagneau. He is the foreman. Tell him that. M. Madeleine - the owner - bids him find you a position. Please, take this as well." He held out a few bills. He wanted to be more generous, but he had intended all the money for Tambroche. 

The woman looked at him suspiciously but took the bills from his hand. "Is this a trick?" she murmured. "Can our luck have changed so fast?" 

He smiled benevolently. He had been distraught during his ride, but suddenly he felt stronger. "It is no trick. Tell the foreman that you met M. Madeleine on the road, and he gave you a token to know him by." If he had stationery, he would write the foreman a note, but as he had none, he surveyed the tilbury for a suitable gift. Finally, he gave the woman his hat. He would feel foolish returning to town without it, but this was a small matter compared to the livelihood of a family. His foreman would recognize the hat, and treat the woman with respect and find her a good position. 

The woman took the hat gravely, and performed another awkward curtsy. He rode on. 

The sky darkened and the wind blew, but no rain fell. His eyes swept the countryside to the left and right. He saw no one for several more leagues. Then, topping a small rise, his eye picked out a single figure up ahead alongside the road. He clucked to his mare. 

The figure barely grew larger as he approached. It was a boy, he recognized at last. He was slight of build. Madeleine could begin to make out an impish grin and red, wind-whipped cheeks. He waved the boy down and reined in his horse. "Hullo!" he called. "Young man! I have a coin for you." 

The boy approached. He was thin and small. Madeleine judged his age at twelve years. He wore ragged country clothes. He was playing a game as he walked, Madeleine saw - flipping a coin into the air and catching it one-handed. There was a familiar insouciance to the gesture that arrested Madeleine. 

"Young man," he whispered. "Petit-Gervais." He swung himself down from the tilbury. "Petit-Gervais. You-- by God above-- You are he!" He sprang forward. He was grinning; he could not believe his luck. He had come looking for one unfortunate, and in the hunt he had found another: the savoyard Petit-Gervais, whom he had robbed and wronged four years before in his last awful act of lawlessness. 

But the boy crouched as he approached, then took a step backward. The impish grin and careless happiness was gone. His bright coin disappeared again into his belt. "Monsieur," he said warily. 

"Aren't you-- Is your name Petit-Gervais?" Now that he was closer, he was beginning to doubt himself. The boy before him was about twelve; he was the size his Petit-Gervais had been when their paths cross outside of Digne. But that meeting had been years ago. The boy he had robbed would by now be much closer to a man. 

The boy took another step backward. 

"Don't be afraid," Madeleine said. "Look: I have money for you." Hastily he brought out his roll of bills. He hesitated, thinking again of Tambroche. Well, if he gave this boy a bill, it would be more money than he had ever owned in his life. He held out a five-franc note. "Please, take it. Just tell me: have you seen a man along the road, traveling alone, heading west? He has a beard, mostly gray, and--" He tried to remember. "A torn shirt, and his shoes flapping open at the sole. He goes on foot. Have you seen such a man? He is my age, perhaps a little younger. Half his left ear is missing." 

The boy did not answer. His eyes were fixed on the bill Madeleine held out. Like a wild animal approaching an unexpected feast that might signify a trap, he edged forward. His grubby hand came out, and he snatched it from Madeleine's fingers. Then he sprang back. 

"I won't hurt you," Madeleine said. "I am only looking for someone. Have you seen him?" 

The boy shook his head soberly. "Ain't been no soul on this road as I've seen," he said. "Not since 'twas Sunday bells, M'sieur." 

"All right, then," Madeleine said. He swallowed his disappointment. "A good journey to you, young man." 

He was about to mount the tilbury again, when the boy stepped toward him. The five-franc note had vanished out of sight - into the rough belt, Madeleine assumed, beside the vanshed coin. The boy had looked fearful before, but now his face had changed. A sly smile had come over it. 

"We kin go amid them bushes, M'sieur," he said. 

Madeleine looked at him in confusion. "Pardon?" 

"I kin do those things gemp'men likes. I been taught. I've had gemp'men friends before, along the road. They didn't pay as handsome as you do, though."

Madeleine drew back. A hot flush crept from below his collar. "No," he said coldly. "No. Certainly not. Be on your way." 

The boy took another step forward. His smile was crafty and desperate. "I be _good_ at it, M'sieur." he said. "The gemp'man who learned me - he said so. Said I was his best ever. Promise by the Holy Mother." His eyes were huge. Madeleine noticed how hollow his red cheeks were, and how the bones of his elbows poked against his shirt. 

Madeleine turned and swung up into his seat, high, where the boy couldn't touch him. "Begone," he said hoarsely. "Run on down the road. I'm looking for a man, I said. Not anything else. I'm looking for a man who needs my help." He took up his whip and laid it along his mare's flank, harder than he had intended. "Out of my way, boy!" The mare started forward with a frieghtened snort and the boy shrank back on the side of the road. His foot came down in a puddle. Madeleine brought the whip down a second time, breathing a sigh of relief as he put the horrible child behind him. 

He held his mare at a steady trot, his eyes continuing to search the fields and small woods that lined the road. Surely Tambroche could not have walked so far in the night and the rain? Perhaps he had missed the man. He should turn back. But he was unwilling to give up his search. 

Behind him, he heard hoofbeats approaching. 

He looked behind. A lone rider on a dark hose was coming up the road from M-sur-M. He rode well, sitting tall in the saddle with an air of authority; he held the reins loosely and his horse cantered with a long stride. It was a few seconds before Madeleine recognized him. 

"Good morning," Inspector Javert said pleasantly as he drew alongside Madeleine's tilbury. 

"Javert," said Madeleine. He swallowed. "A coincidence, seeing you here." His eyes went to Javert's side. The cudgel swung at his belt, its shine mirroring the high gloss of the Inspector's saddle. Madeleine thought he could smell fresh-cut oak. A weakness overtook him. The mare tossed her head, feeling her master's grip slip from the reins. 

"Not at all," Javert said. "I had heard you rode out on the western road early this morning. I was concerned you might come into danger in such a lonely place. And then, of course, I had also been informed that a dangerous man had been seen traveling this road - the shipbuilder we observed yesterday outside the cobbler's shop. He has a violent past - and I would not want you to come to harm out here, Monsieur le Maire." 

Madeleine tightened his grip. He could not think of an answer. 

"Come," said Javert. "You are seeking this man, Tambroche, are you not? You have charity in mind, I'm sure. He is an honest, suffering soul - and you are famous for your generosity. I have heard where he is staying. I will take you to him. I am sure he will be glad to meet a benefactor." 

Javert turned his horse smoothly and looked over his shoulder. "This way, M. le maire. The man in question is said to be sheltering under that stand of trees, on the edge of a mud slough, awaiting fairer weather. He frightened a milkmaid this morning. He is on public land and I will not arrest him, but I will be happy to escort you to him." 

Madeleine was loathe to follow Javert but he could not see how he could do otherwise. He could still feel the roll of bills in his trousers - smaller than when he had set out, but still a fortune to a man like Tambroche. He had meant to find his old chain-mate and press it into the man's dirty hands with no witnesses, turning away quickly before he could be recognized. If he met the man with Javert standing by, a smirk on his lean face and the unspoken name _Valjean_ on his lips, there was no telling what might happen. 

_It is my fate,_ Madeleine told himself. _It is atonement. I am in God's hands._ His mind returned to the previous night, when he had given himself in servitude to Javert, and they had acted out a pantomime of Jesus and the Apostles, or Mary Magdalene and her lord. Thinking of it made him blush. 

He laid the whip down on his mare and took off after Javert. 

They went only a little ways back along the road to M-sur-M when Javert reined up his horse and dismounted. "Here," he said pleasantly. "This way, Monsieur le Maire. I will show you what you seek."


	7. Chapter 7

Madeleine followed Javert on foot through tall wet grass that brushed at his knees, over mud that sucked at his shoes. Javert strode toward the grove without a backward glance. The trees there were closely spaced, their branches embracing. Javert was swallowed by shadow as he slipped between the trunks. 

Madeleine reached the spot a moment later and looked around as his eyes adjusted. The place was silent. The light breeze that had freshened his journey was unable to penetrate the little wood. A bed of fallen leaves cushioned his steps. Puddles lay in low-lying spots, the water opaque and rich with floating debris that the trees had shed as they went through their round of seasons. 

He saw Javert just ahead of him, standing by a young poplar. 

"So," he said, uncertainly. "Where is he?" 

"Here." Javert pointed at the ground. "See his tracks. And over there, at the foot at that tree: the place he slept last night. The leaves there are crushed down in the shape of a man." 

Madeleine could see no tracks, and if the leaves were crushed, his eye was not good enough to recognize it. He looked again at Javert's hands. He looked at the knob of the cudgel, which protruded, as always, from under his arm. 

"Where has he gone, then?" 

Javert shrugged. "He must have moved on - west toward Grichene, no doubt, in search of honest work. Are you sorry?" He stepped closer. His voice was low, but it carried well as there was no sound in the grove - only the sound of their breathing, their small movements in the dimness. "Strange, that an esteemed mayor feels such-- _affinity_ \- for a man like him. You look bereft. Anyone would suspect you had lost a brother." 

The roll of money in Madeleine's pocket jabbed at his thigh like an accusing finger. "Grichene is another twenty leagues," he muttered. 

Tambroche would not reach the town before dark. He would spend another night sleeping uncovered under the foreboding sky where he would again be cold and wet and hungry, while Madeleine himself would sleep in comfort. Still, he did not think it wise to continue his search now that Javert was beside him. Surely that would only bring trouble to his old chain-mate. It would be better to return another day and seek the man out in Grichene. 

Secretly, he was relieved. He had not really wanted to face Tambroche. He had planned to turn his collar up to hide his face, then shove his money at the man quickly and hurry off without a word spoken, since he feared that his voice might give him away. 

He was relieved, and he was ashamed. 

Javert took another step toward him. He was threateningly close now. He held the cudgel under his arm loosely and with confidence. Madeleine thought of the unyielding strength of the wood, and the strength of Javert. Javert was watching him: dark eyes burning forth from a lean, hard face framed on both sides by whiskers that hinted at barbarism. Madeleine became aware his heart was pounding. His gaze dropped and went, inadvertently, to the black boots on Javert's feet. 

"My boots," murmured Javert. "Yes: they are in quite a state. Do you not agree?" 

As Madeleine thought of what had passed between them the night before, he could already imagine the taste of mud on leather. Javert leaned against a tree. He wore his familiar expression: an arched brow, the hint of a sneer. 

Madeleine lowered himself. He set his knees down carefully into the wet ground and felt the mud ooze under his weight, and the cold water soaking through the cloth of his trousers. He was glad of this: glad to be low and to be dirty and humbled. He bent and opened his mouth to the wet leather of Javert's boot. Soon he was working his lips and tongue over it with abandon. Like the night before, he reveled in his debasement. Then a hand gripped him by the hair and his head was hauled up against his will. He saw the cudgel: it swung in front of him like a pendulum. Javert pushed the tip against his mouth just as he had done in the oak-scented office of the police station-house. It rubbed roughly against his lips. "Kiss it," Javert hissed. "Open for it." 

Madeleine did. He opened, and lapped at the bitter wood. He was aware of Javert staring down at him, utterly still. The tip of the cudgel twitched slightly between Madeleine's spread lips, and when he looked to Javert's hand, he saw that it was trembling. 

Lips and tongue burning, Madeleine stretched his mouth open as wide as it would go and tried to draw the cudgel in. Javert was panting now. In front of Madeleine were the long, well-formed legs of his police inspector, encased in blue serge, the black boots rising to clasp the inspector's calves, his stiff trousers damp from the long grasses they had strode through. The blue coat came down over Javert's hips to reach the top of his thighs. Tentatively, Madeleine put out his hand. He slipped it under the coat's hem and felt for the mound of flesh concealed there. It was hard, and stirred under his touch. Javert's breath came even faster. 

He dared to look up, though he had to strain against the hand that still gripped his hair. The other man's lips were parted. Their eyes met. Then, abruptly, Javert hurled the cudgel aside and unfastened his trousers - and Madeleine grasped them at his waist and slid them down until Javert's flesh was laid bare in front of him Then he opened his mouth, sank forward and took it in. He struggled to draw breath around it, as a brief cry leapt from Javert like the cry of a hurt animal. 

Javert wrenched himself away. 

"You," he spat. "You filthy dog. You fiend." 

Madeleine pulled himself up, hardly knowing what he was doing, hearing his knees come free of the sucking mud with an obscene sound. He gripped Javert by the front of his jacket with one hand and with the other he took hold of Javert's bare flesh, hot and wet. It jerked in his hand. Javert grabbed him violently and spun him around, then shoved him forward against the nearest tree. Javert's arms reached around him from behind and tore open his trousers, sending the buttons flying into the mud. Madeleine felt his trousers pulled down, his hips bared, and the cool air of the glade striking his skin. He heard Javert spit twice. His buttocks were parted and an ungentle finger pushed into him. He gasped at the pain of it. His own cock was painfully erect and a bead of fluid dripped from it and struck the wet leaves at his feet. A second finger was thrust into him. He bit his lip and braced himself against the oak. Then the fingers were gone, and he felt a blind blunt object rutting in his cleft until at last it caught in the right spot. He felt it beginning to push into him and lay him open. He pushed back on it despite the pain. One of Javert's arms was clamped across his chest. The other found the front hem of his shirt and went beneath. The large, simian hand of Javert, with its broad palm and long fingers, wrapped around the base of his cock, and from Javert's hand a hot desperation surged into Madeleine's body, a tongue of flame thrust into his core. Javert's bare hips were hot and muscular against his haunches, and Javert's flesh drove deeper, forcing the passage, until skin was pressed against skin with no separation between them. The panting breaths of the other man raised the small hairs along Madeleine's neck. Then he felt Javert's teeth take hold of him just above his collar. Javert's wet lips moved against his skin. The large hand gripped and released in rhythm, in time with the accelerating rhythm of his thrusts. 

Their grunts and the sound of their harsh quick breaths mingled together. Javert moved faster, faster. Madeleine held himself in a way that allowed Javert the deepest thrusts, even though what he felt was pain along with need. At last Javert gave a long, open-mouthed cry. His taut body relaxed and his rhythm slackened. Then Madeleine put his hand over Javert's. He worked their two hands together, up and down along his shaft until he was hot and dizzy with it, and then he too cried out and his spend shot out in an arc, some striking the trunk of the oak and some falling into the carpet of limp leaves. There was a new smell in the forest now: of sweat and musk; the smell of wild creatures. 

They remained like that. Madeleine, his strength drained, leaned against the oak. Javert leaned too - against Madeleine's own body, his cheek resting heavily on Madeleine's shoulder. Their breathing slowed. Finally, they eased themselves apart. 

Madeleine was afraid to look at Javert, and the other man apparently felt the same - his soft footfalls were moving quietly away, deeper into the glade. Madeleine stumbled a few paces in the other direction. He took the handkerchief from his breast pocket and tried to wipe himself clean. Then he pulled up his trousers. He mopped his face. He arranged his shirt and waistcoat. He could not remember what had happened to his hat - but at last it came to him that he had given it to the poor woman on the side of the western road. 

He would not have believed his memory of their momentary madness, except that his body held the record of it. He was in deep pain still - a private, sobbing pain he had not felt since Toulon - and his muscles throbbed. Above his collar he still felt the angry bite of Javert's teeth. Around his shoulders, he still felt the imprint of Javert's unyielding grip. Between his thighs, a lazy warmth had spread. The smell of oak hung in the air around him. 

Eventually, he saw no choice but to face Javert. The man's dim outline was visible; he had his back turned and was rubbing furiously at a spot on the hip of his trousers. The cudgel, Madeleine saw, was still lying on the ground. He picked it up and used his handkerchief to wipe it. 

Javert turned. The two men regarded each other - but only for an instant; then Javert flicked his eyes away. He was standing rigidly erect, like a man of glass who fears that he will shatter if he bends. Madeleine held out the cudgel silently; Javert snatched it out of his hands. The inspector's hair had pulled partially loose from its customary confinement. Strands had escaped and were hanging free under the brim of his hat. 

"We should return separately," Madeleine said at last, in a low voice. "You first. I'll wait." He looked down at his clothes, the trousers slathered with mud and still clinging awkwardly against his legs. The torn waist was at concealed by waistcoat and jacket. "I will say I struck a loose cobble and had to crawl beneath the tilbury to check the axle for damage. There will be no questions." 

Javert nodded. Then, recoiling, he spat, "No. You go first. I won't have you skulking at my back." He raised his eyes, and Madeleine saw that they were large and dark - frightened, perhaps, or shaken and bewildered, or moved by other emotions Madeleine could not name. Their usual hard arrogance had been wiped away. He looked like a man - like any man - in such a place, after such a thing had happened. 

Madeleine was searching for words, when abruptly Javert's hand shot out and gripped him hard above the elbow. "Filthy dog. You did this - to threaten my reputation; to extort my silence." His face contorted suddenly, as if he might weep, but then his expression hardened. "Your plan has already failed. It has been weeks since I posted a letter to Paris, denouncing you as the man you really are. And even if hadn't, I would not bend to a blackmailer. Even if it cost me everything I've built up in this life, I would not protect scum like you." He drew his lips back to show his teeth. Then he released Madeleine's arm and wrenched himself away violently. 

"I am not a blackmailer," Madeleine said. Javert answered with an ugly laugh. Madeleine pressed on. "Think. If I were to speak, my reputation and livelihood would be gone alongside yours. You are not the only man here who has built his name on being virtuous." 

For a moment they faced each other and neither spoke. Finally, Javert muttered, "Go!" and jerked his chin toward the road which lay past the trees, past the field of tall grasses swaying under the heavy, glowering sky. 

Still, Madeleine found it difficult to move. He could see the edge of the little wood, and the sweep of grass beyond. M. Scaufflaire's tilbury was waiting there. The mare would be nervous at her abandonment; hopefully she had not strayed. He could still feel the marks of Javert's body on his skin, but fainter now - and this made him sad, as if he were losing something precious that could not be recovered. He stepped softly over the fallen leaves. His legs felt new in their strange warmth and weakness, like the legs of a day-old colt. After a few steps he stopped and looked back at Javert. He saw the other man standing stock-still, as rigid as a soldier, staring straight ahead at the trees in front of him. It was a blind man's stare. His forehead was drawn in misery and he was working his mouth, as if talking to himself. 

"Javert," Madeleine said. But Javert would not look at him. "Your hair." He touched his own bare head in illustration. "It-- it needs adjustment." He made a little stiff bow, and then turned quickly and made his way out of the trees, into open air where the tilbury stood waiting. 


	8. Chapter 8

On the table in front of Madeleine was a plate, and on the plate was a slab of veal in a pool of rich sauce. His cook had prepared it the way he liked best, with the edges crisp and the center barely pink. Steam rose from the plate to warm his chin. Madeleine stared at the meat. He pushed it listlessly with his knife, then pressed the tines of his fork against it, leaving parallel dents. He had no appetite. He knew the cause of his sickness. He could still feel it, raw and torn, where his body met the hard wooden chair beneath him. 

At Toulon he had occasionally given himself to rough hands grasping hotly in the dark, and to the tight clutch of a hardened, unwashed body on the wooden plank. He never felt any affection for the men he chose, only a desperate need, though sometimes he told himself angrily that what he did with them was the same pleasure he would have known as a free man, with a wife. 

In the last years of his sentence, a kind of panic came over him at times. At the drydock or in the mess, surrounded by hundreds of other men, he would start to feel as if he were the last man left alive and that he was trapped on a high rock on a drowning island, waiting while waters rose around him to smother his cries. It was to escape the terror of his slow drowning that he would catch the eye of a fellow convict and make a surreptitious gesture. Usually he chose one who had recently arrived - who still carried the scent of trees and open land and the free sweep of farms and hills beyond the iron gate. And because he was feared as Jean-le-Cric, the convict he signaled to would line up behind him that night as the mass of men entered the sleeping hall. They would shuffle into place, twelve to a plank, and the guards would draw the chain through the line of leg-irons and blow out the lanterns and depart, and then Madeleine would get what he was in need of. He had an idea that when he opened for the act, he was letting something be planted in his body like the seed of a fruit tree, and that it might grow inside him and spread its boughs in him to cure his loneliness. It never worked. The moment after release, he peeled his moist flesh away from the man at his back and knew he was no better off than he had been before. Still, between the first thrust and the last there was a brief span of illusory escape - and in Toulon he had come to need those moments like an addict needs the pipe. 

At times in Montreuil, it had crossed his mind to look for the same elusive solace. But he was not as lonely or as desperate as he used to be. And here he was the mayor, and God was watching - and so were the eyes of the town. 

After dinner he went out. As he walked briskly the brief distance to Javert's doorstep, past stray dogs and the frail form of Mme. Lourigne, her arms piled high with washing, his thoughts swung back and forth. He thought mostly of what had happened that afternoon in the glade, among the scent of wood and wet leaves, where the fierce heat and strength of Inspector Javert had pushed against his back. He thought of the shame of letting himself be used like that by a man who was meant to be his inferior, but who knew his horrible secret and his cravenness and felt nothing but contempt for him. And he thought of Tambroche once more: a man in rags somewhere out in the dark. And then his thoughts went to the empty spare bed that he hadn't offered, and to the roll of money still in the pocket of the muddied trousers that were now torn at the waist. He had hidden these in the back of his wardrobe upon returning home. All these thoughts then brought his mind full circle to the memory of Javert in the crowd in front of the cobbler's shop. The townspeople had pressed around them, but no one had seen Javert's flank so close to Madeleine's that they were almost touching, or the shining head of the cudgel under Javert's arm and the warm lips that had moved against Madeleine's ear. _One man earns his supper through honest toil, while nearby, there stands another--_

He had to knock several times before Javert opened the door. The inspector stood in the doorway, his uniform perfectr, blocking the entrance with his length and breadth. For a while he didn't speak. Finally he said, "What are you doing here?" 

The tone was icy. "Please," muttered Madeleine. "Please, allow me to enter." 

"No." Javert seemed to flinch away from Madeleine's words but he continued to block the doorway. "If you have official business with the police, there is a man on duty at the station-house. You may speak to him." He recited this tonelessly and in a rush, as if he had been practicing the phrase. 

"Please," Madeleine said. "Think. Your landlady will have seen me coming up the walk. If you don't admit me, that will be a cause for gossip. The longer I am seen standing here, the worse it will look for us both." 

"You should not have come," Javert hissed. His whisper was low but full of violence. Still, he stepped back. He retreated to the small table while Madeleine followed. Javert picked up his cudgel in his large right hand, and held it up across his chest as if to defend himself. Then, for the first time his accustomed sneer returned. Mockingly he said, "What noble errand brings you to my door - M. le maire." 

"I think you know." Madeleine's face was hot. "I don't come as a mayor." 

That brought an outburst from Javert. "No! That much I know - you are no mayor and you never have been. A man like you." The muscles of Javert's forearm stood out as he gripped the cudgel. "I know what a mayor is. He is a person above reproach. He sets an example of orderliness. But you - your are scum - an affront to God and the law both." In great agitation, Javert began to pass the cudgel from hand to hand. "I know your type. I have spent my life among people like you. I was born in the gutter - did you know that? Yes: I was born in filth. I worked my whole life to stay clean; I have never erred; I have upheld the law. Every day of my life - do you hear me?" 

Madeleine watched the cudgel move back and forth between the two hands of Javert. He could barely concentrate on the words being said, but Javert's voice entered him, humbling him with its power and anguish, uncloaking the desire he had been barely holding back. He stepped forward, drawn by the scent of oak and the memory of the rough tree he had been pressed against while the weighted strength of Javert thrust into him from behind. He could not speak, but neither could he take his eyes off the man in front of him. He stepped forward again. Javert fell back another step. He lifted the cudgel protectively. "Get out." 

"Not long ago," Madeleine gasped, "you told me about a man. A prisoner. He confessed on his knees. He kissed your cudgel. And it-- it improved him." 

Javert snarled, "The beating from my right arm is what improved him. I left him bloodied and weeping." He drew himself up and said more calmly, "Shall I assume that is what you've come for, M le maire?" His hand tightened on the cudgel. His long fingers whitened. 

Madeleine drew a sharp breath. He looked down, his face getting hotter. He could feel Javert's gaze on him, looking through him once again. Javert knew him, knew what he was, knew he was low and worthless. He should kneel. He should lie prone even, and be ground into the floor by Javert's black boot. He should be split open and humiliated. He looked up at Javert, willing him to understand without words. Javert bared his teeth. Then he pounced. 

The large hands seized Madeleine, and one arm went expertly around his throat. There was a low moan that came from one of them, and Madeleine felt both his arms twisted behind him in an efficient movement, so that his shoulders were wrenched painfully in their sockets. He resisted, though not with all his strength, and Javert forced his arms back even harder until tears of pain stung his eyes. Bent nearly double, he gritted his teeth against the shocks of agony that his captor inflicted, as he was shoved forward step by step. Madeleine saw he was being marched through a narrow door to a small room. It was bare aside from a bed covered in a brown blanket, stretched faultlessly taut, and a cheap bureau that stood against one wall. Javert hissed at his ear; "Here's what you deserve." Madeleine could not help crying out as he was shoved forward once more, so that now his thighs pressed against the side of the bed and his torso was forced down. He buried his face in the blanket. His arms were released, and hot relief flooded him as the pain receded. He heard the shift of cloth behind him and the steady rasp of Javert's breaths. Hastily he unbuttoned his own trousers and pushed them down. He was already sore from what he had allowed in the glade that afternoon. This time, when Javert's wet finger pushed into him, it burned like fire. But he welcomed it and craved another - and when he felt himself violated and mastered by the second finger, he craved what he knew was coming next. His cock was hard against his belly. 

"Wait!" he cried. He had remembered the landlady who would do the linens. "Wait. Let me put down a handkerchief." His voice sounded strange in his ears. 

Javert released him and he took the handkerchief from his pocket and spread it on the bed, covering the small dark spot he had already made. He was aware of Javert's terrible gaze still fixed on him. Javert was motionless, watching, and his expression was unreadable but his shoulders twitched and his lips were drawn back in either hunger or horror. Then Madeleine bent again. 

Javert pushed into him, entering him painfully. It burned, but he strove to open to it. Again he felt hot breath, and the grip of teeth closing on his collar, and he reached up to loosen the collar and push it aside so he could have lips and heat against his skin. Javert grunted and thrust. He was cursing in a low voice like the snarl of a beast. "Is this what you want? This? Scum-- born in the gutter-- meant for nothing better. So it's punishment that you came begging for, is it? Then it's punishment you'll have!" The words went through Madeleine like a blade drawn cruelly along the underside of his balls, thrilling him and making him cry out in eagerness. Javert forced a hand under Madeleine's hips and clutched his flesh. Their two voices groaned together. "By God, you'll have it. You'll take it," Javert panted. "By God. By God." Madeleine pressed his face into the blanket to stifle the cries that wanted to rise inside him. Javert began to move faster. Then heat erupted, and tremors ran through Madeleine for a moment that lasted forever. And when it finally ended, it left his mind as calm and unmarked as an expanse of sand along the shore after a towering wave has conquered it and then rolled out. 

Javert collapsed on top of him. He pulled his hand out from under Madeleine's hips and laid it, unexpectedly, against Madeleine's temple, where it caressed the side of his face. Madeleine felt peace with the weight of Javert on top of him. It occurred to him that he had forgotten what he had felt as a young man after a long day's fruitful labor, when he came home and filled his belly and lay down to sleep. He closed his eyes. But a moment later he was sorry to feel Javert's weight lift from his back. 

Footsteps retreated. Madeleine lay still. He thought the old thought he had clung to at Toulon - that a seed planted in him might grow to fill him where he was empty, inside, where his flesh enclosed a hollow space like the inside of a carved bowl. This time, unlike in the bagne, it seemed possible. He stood up and was glad to find that his trousers were clean. On the bed, however, his seed had stained not just the handkerchief but the blanket around it. He did not see a place to wash the handkerchief and he could not put it in his pocket in its current state, so with some disquiet he left it as it was and went out of the room. 

He saw Javert standing beside the small table and its one chair, facing toward the wall so his back was to Madeleine. His figure seemed slightly crumpled, the shoulders slumped in something like exhaustion. But Madeleine's gaze skirted quickly over him and he stepped out the door. He was careful to make as little noise as possible, like a departing thief. 


End file.
